Performance: Kobo vs Kindle

[Lucas Malor]

Recently I bought another e-book reader, and I tried a Kindle for curiosity. This time I choose a non-touch model for economic reasons.

Ok, it can't read epubs, Kobo's style is better and when I turn pages I feel Kobo is a little less "twitching"... but it's fast dude. Especially if you compare the powering on, the searching and the highlighting. I do not know if the fact that Glo is a touch device matters, but I suppose not.

Really, I do not know if I'll buy a Kobo Glo instead of a Kindle Touch the next time. IMHHHHHO Kobo should focus more on the software quality.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Lucas Malor

Recently I bought another e-book reader, and I tried a Kindle for curiosity. This time I choose a non-touch model for economic reasons.

Ok, it can't read epubs, Kobo's style is better and when I turn pages I feel Kobo is a little less "twitching"... but it's fast dude. Especially if you compare the powering on, the searching and the highlighting. I do not know if the fact that Glo is a touch device matters, but I suppose not.

Really, I do not know if I'll buy a Kobo Glo instead of a Kindle Touch the next time. IMHHHHHO Kobo should focus more on the software quality.

How about page turning?

[shanghaichica]

I'd imagine that the non touch screen kindles are slower than the touch screen models. I used a kobo glo briefly last year. When using it side by side with my kindle keyboard and kindle touch I found that it was faster than the keyboard but not as fast as the touch. I'd think the glo would be better overall than a kindle touch because it has a built in light and the screen has a higher resolution. The comparable reader to the glo is the kindle paperwhite. Perhaps you can go into a store and try the glo. and the paperwhite/ touch side by and see which one you prefer?

[Lucas Malor]

@John F: page turning is a little more slow on Kobo, but the difference is really negligible. And as I said I feel the page turning on Kobo more "smooth".

@shanghaichica: ok, events executed with buttons are faster than touch events of course. But when you search a word, after you begin the search, touch events are not needed any more. And Kobo is very slow at searching. The fact you have to load also the touch handler can affect the startup time, but not so much... the Kindle powers on almost instantly. Highlighting can be affected by touch, but only because on Kobo you have to drag instead of selecting the start and the end.

I agree with you I should compare the Glo with the Paperwhite, or Kindle Touch with Kobo Touch, but the difference is anyway suggestive. I have not found any comparison between Rakuten and Amazon products that takes into account searching, highlighting and power-on speed.

[shanghaichica]

Originally Posted by Lucas Malor

@John F: page turning is a little more slow on Kobo, but the difference is really negligible. And as I said I feel the page turning on Kobo more "smooth".

@shanghaichica: ok, events executed with buttons are faster than touch events of course. But when you search a word, after you begin the search, touch events are not needed any more. And Kobo is very slow at searching. The fact you have to load also the touch handler can affect the startup time, but not so much... the Kindle powers on almost instantly. Highlighting can be affected by touch, but only because on Kobo you have to drag instead of selecting the start and the end.

I agree with you I should compare the Glo with the Paperwhite, or Kindle Touch with Kobo Touch, but the difference is anyway suggestive. I have not found any comparison between Rakuten and Amazon products that takes into account searching, highlighting and power-on speed.

I found the touch screen to be faster than the buttons when I conpared the kindle keyboard to the touch. Also on my kobo mini searching is snappy. I find the highlighting to be faster and more acurate on my kindle than on my kobo and although searching on my kobo is fast its faster on the paperwhite. However its a bit unfair to compare the kobo mini to the paperwhite because the paperwhite has a faster processor.

[Lucas Malor]

For what I know, Paperwhite has an 800 Mhz processor, as Kobo Mini:
http://goodereader.com/blog/electron...le-paperwhite/

And Kobo Glo has a 1Ghz processor. There's something wrong in all this story.

[Lucas Malor]

Ok, I must say Kindle is not faster than Kobo at start up. The fact it seems more fast is because pressing the power button for 7 seconds does not shut down the Kindle, but puts it in sleep mode, even if the manual says the contrary.

Anyway the other performance differences are true. I'm very curious to compare Kobo Glo with Paperwhite or Kindle Touch.

[sos_sifou]

You'd better watch some YouTube videos?
Go to YouTube, put in the search bar "kindle paperwhite vs kobo glo"

[moofychops]

Hi,
I sometimes wonder about peoples obsession for faster response times for their gadgets. One wonders what if gadget one takes 5 seconds and gadget two takes 10 seconds to load, what the user would do in that extra 5 seconds he now has from buying gadget one. I suspect he/she will simply stare at the gadget with a little smile of satisfaction and then move on to using it. hi hi.
Ron Wales, UK

[sos_sifou]

Originally Posted by moofychops

Hi,
I sometimes wonder about peoples obsession for faster response times for their gadgets. One wonders what if gadget one takes 5 seconds and gadget two takes 10 seconds to load, what the user would do in that extra 5 seconds he now has from buying gadget one. I suspect he/she will simply stare at the gadget with a little smile of satisfaction and then move on to using it. hi hi.
Ron Wales, UK

Good point ! But i think that different gadgets have different priorities... For a cellphone we may need reliability and long battery life. A portable computer should be portable, that means very light and usable (it may be less powerful than a desktop computer but it get the job done). For eink reader, the most important thing is the screen, the text must be very clear, with good contrast and a good refresh rate to keep it clean, otherwise, you can have a quad-core tablet with qualcomm 800 clocked at 2.2 GHz, i assure you that you won't get any delays, but outdoor readability, zero, eyes strain, a lot!

[Lucas Malor]

Originally Posted by sos_sifou

You'd better watch some YouTube videos?
Go to YouTube, put in the search bar "kindle paperwhite vs kobo glo"

Yes, I've seen some videos like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adLtTKy56X0
My Glo was never so fast at looking up the dictionary... I'm more interested in a home-made video.

@moofychops: I often use dictionary and searching, and the fact they are really slow hurts me. And since I discovered that Kindle 4 is faster, I can move on and use my Kobo or move on to another ebook reader brand

[John F]

Originally Posted by moofychops

Hi,
I sometimes wonder about peoples obsession for faster response times for their gadgets. One wonders what if gadget one takes 5 seconds and gadget two takes 10 seconds to load, what the user would do in that extra 5 seconds he now has from buying gadget one. I suspect he/she will simply stare at the gadget with a little smile of satisfaction and then move on to using it. hi hi.
Ron Wales, UK

5 seconds to load (the next page while reading) is too long. I would definitly want a faster ereader.

[Lucas Malor]

Do you use e-clay tablet?